The new season started as the last season ended - trending downward. Reasons for the fall varied from too much wool in the opening two weeks of the season to worries about the economic problems in Europe and North America and Chinese mills unwilling to book up wool at these levels. The talk of a 20 to 30 cent fall from the outset rang true from the opening lot on Wednesday as 15 to 30 cent falls were recorded for most indicators. Other indicators such as 17.5, 18 and 19 suffered heavier losses of 35 to 45 cents even though the FNF and “Best Topmaker” style lots were dearer with 17s also in sellers’ favour. Despite this fall early in the day, the market did in fact improve as the day went on. Thursday’s offering met with similar buying patterns for the finer indicators as 17.5 to 18.5 fell 10 to 29 cents, but the better lots posted good gains. Medium types were solid with 21s adding 14 cents to their overnight values. One highlight came out of Melbourne on Wednesday with an 11.4 micron bale of shedded and coated wool from 2 year old wethers making 200,000 cents (highest price in 3 years). This bale, measuring 66mm & 41nkt was bought by G Schneider Australia for their Italian client, Lora Piana to be woven into cloth at their mill in Milan.

Unlike previous weeks, skirtings failed to maintain their good levels and followed the pattern of falling prices in the fleece room. Most descriptions opened up around 30 cents cheaper with most emphasis on 5%vm and lower. The heavier vm lots also came under pressure to fall by 50 cents. On our day’s sale (Thursday), most types remained unchanged except some short burrier types quoted cheaper by 10 to 20 cents and the usual discounts for lots with colour and cott. Cardings started the new season with a 20 to 30 cent fall for all types and vm levels on the opening day and remained at these rates on Thursday. An increased volume of Crossbreds saw all descriptions ease on both days bar the finer indicators (25 and 26s) which gained 10 to 15 cents while 28 to 32 micron lots dipped by 30 cents.

Even with the market falling, value/bale is still very good. This week’s catalogue was our biggest to date with 1962 bales offered with 1834 bales sold averaging $1460/bale. Our biggest buyer was Williams Wool buying 366 bales costing $501,244 at an average of $1370/bale with a total of 27 buyers operating on our catalogue. Next week will see Don Macdonald & Co offer 1670 bales second up on Tuesday in the final sale before the three week winter recess. A finish to the market at these levels may be the best the outcome we can hope for as a national catalogue of 59,000 bales is on offer, the largest weekly offering since mid January.